Tenancies-in-common: Darren Bridgett

“My name is Darren Bridgett, and I live in a TIC with my wife and son in Cole Valley, and we’ve been here for I think five years now. Maybe close to six.

“I’m an actor and in the arts, and my wife is a psychotherapist. She’s co-director of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services. It provides psychological services for essentially like low-fee clients, kind of like the working poor.

“We’d always wanted to own a home, and we never had the means. We saved up some money, and got lucky, and were able to cobble together enough money to put a down payment on a place.

“The TIC thing was more affordable. That’s basically what it boiled down to. None of us wanted to be in a TIC forever. The fact that it can go condo is what you’re looking for. I wish it would just be a condo or nothing. And that all the prices in the city for housing or for rent were just way less or at least in line with what people earn when they’re just contributing, working people in the city.

“We would not have considered buying a place with the Ellis Act. First, we wouldn’t have done it, because morally we wouldn’t feel good about it. We’ve certainly had friends and family that have been in, and we could have been in that situation ourselves.

“Our experience though has been really good. There’s four units here. And we’ve all gotten along really great. I feel like we’ve been really lucky. But being able to own a home in the city is great. My wife had to convince me to do it. I liked the freedom of rent. Although again, it’s hard to have a sense of freedom of rent nowadays when it’s so expensive. But I’m glad she did, it’s been a great place.”